Photo: Janet Miller (l), Cherokee County Economic Development; Linseh Johnson LCC Director of Workforce Education and Career Training; and Joe Burke, LCC VP of Academic Affairs.

Labette County now a WorkReady Community and LCC Serves as ACT WorkReady Testing Site

Parsons, KS- The trend of being a WorkReady! Community is quickly sweeping across the nation. Currently, there are 196 counties in the nation that are considered WorkReady! Communities. Kansas is home to three of those counties: Labette, Cherokee, and Potawatomie. Over the last couple years, several individuals including Janet Miller (Cherokee County Economic Development), Linseh Johnson (Director of Workforce Education and Career Training at LCC, former GOALS Team Leader with DCF), Ryan Seme (Former Director of Workforce Education and Career Training at LCC), Jim Zaleski(Labette County Economic Development), Kylie Ludwig (K-State Research Center), local school districts, several local industries, and other individuals have been pushing to have a strong workforce pool for all involved in Labette and Cherokee counties. 

ACT Workforce Summit in Austin, TX November 8th-10th, 2017 awarded all counties considered to be a WorkReady! Community. Proudly, Southeast Kansas hit the spotlight as this included Labette and Cherokee counties. Labette County has 24 supporting employers with Cherokee County also having 24 supporting employers. 

Janet Miller says being a WorkReady! Community shows a connection between education and employers and have the understanding that in order to have a strong workforce, you need education to help people succeed in several jobs. Labette Community College understand the importance of having a skilled labor pool to present to local and surrounding employers as this will help the economic development of all involved. Linseh Johnson, Director of Workforce Education and Career Training at Labette Community College says she hopes LCC in conjunction with other schools in SEK will help be an engine to power economic development throughout Southeast Kansas. With this being said, Johnson states that being a WorkReady Community will help Economic Developers such as Miller and Zaleski maintain current employers and attract new employers to the SEK area. 

Individuals that take the WorkReady! Test are tested on applied math, workplace documents, and graphic literacy. Based on those scores, they are placed into different categories: Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum. Employers can then use this as a hiring tool when looking for potential employees. For example, an employer that was searching for entry-level employees, would search for individuals with a Bronze certificate. 

Labette Community College serves as an approved testing site for the ACT WorkReady! Certificate. Anyone interested in taking the ACT WorkReady! Test should contact Karen Barger at 620-820-1182 or email Linseh Johnson at linsehj@labette.edu.